Monday, June 26, 2006

Real Empty Environs

No, that's not from a Pirates-Royals game. That's from last night's game at Yankee Stadium. Nearly seven thousand brave souls battled the 74-degree, overcast elements to witness this summertime, weekend game.

It was the make-up date for Saturday afternoon's rainout. Fans were offered a chance to exchange their tickets for a future game, AND will be "invited" back for another game in the '07 season, whatever that means, according to yankees.com.

Okay, so roughtly 50,000 people decided they'd rather just pick a different game than go back to the Stadium the following night. A little too many, if you ask me, but, it's their choice. What I really don't get is, how come nobody filled those empty seats? If the Red Sox announced right now that there would be a bonus game at Fenway tonight, it would sell out. Where are the Yankee fans? They can't be bothered to go to a Sunday night game in the summer, when almost every seat in the house is available?

All right, maybe since all the tickets had been sold, they couldn't resell them to new people since the original people hadn't exchanged them yet. If that's true, I go right back to not understanding why such a huge percentage of the original crowd chose not to go to this game, the day after it was originally scheduled. I'm sorry, but this shows you how committed these people are. Where were the "bleacher creatures"? Aren't they, if no one else, supposedly there through thick and thin, attending every single game?

And season ticket holders: You're there anyway for game one. Stick around! You're still back in Westchester by midnight, and the kids are out of school anyway!

My point is, if any Yankee fan tells you they go to every game, last night proved that there's only a 6,809 in 57,478 chance they're telling the truth. That's about 12 percent.

What I would've loved to hear is Jon Sterling's call of this game. He literally fawns in sheer amazement over the huge crowds on every single broadcast, as if he himself were responsible for interest in the Yankees. I don't know how he could've explained the fact that the amount of people in the entire upper deck were outnumbered by Stadium employees: "It usually doesn't snow this hard in late-June, Suzyn. You really gotta hand it to these, the best fans in baseball."

The people that were there witnessed Sox farmhand Anibal Sanchez shut down the Yanks in his debut. A very key win by Florida, preventing the Yanks from gaining a full game on us yesterday. So we're still up 2.5, and up 6 in the loss on Toronto.

Check out this article abou the '86 reunion. Gedman is clearly the star of the article! Unfortunately he won't be at the Jere-predicted reunion because he'll be with his team, the Worcester Tornadoes. Somehow I feel his players will implore him to go. And I'm still holding out hope for Buckner, who, surprisingly, didn't just say "I ain't goin' back there," but claimed to have a prior engagement. What is it, Billy, a haircut? Get your ass to Fenway!